Housing Benefit

Your Housing Benefit will usually start from the Monday after we receive your claim.

If you can prove that there was good reason for claiming Housing Benefit late, we may be able to backdate your claim. For example:

• you were in hospital
• you were too ill to claim and had nobody else to help you
• you've suffered a recent family bereavement 

If you're of working age, we can only backdate your award for up to one month. You must ask us to do this, and be able to prove your reason for applying late.

If you're of pension age, we can backdate your award for up to 13 weeks - we will automatically do this if we can.